AlanC9 wrote...
What would you have needed for this aspect to work? I thought ME3 did OK with this; but that might be because I'm comparing it to DA:O, which had a similar plot but botched this aspect completely.
I thought it was pretty self-explanatory - crowd looks like theatrical scenery, complitely lack of any signs of life (and they don't blink, yes). I do not mean scenery itself, with eternally burning and crushed something after Cerberus' raid on Citatel (Helgen burns forever too, no?).
Since engine (or people who work with) sucks royally and sideways, graphics-only usage is limited or not available completely. To add "life" or to "animate" crowd you need to, ahem, well, animate it and give them voice. I already told general opinion on voice (or lack thereof ingame), so let's concentrate on animation.
Same people, standing in same places (or walking between same two points - wave that asari in yellow), in same poses or doing same gestures no matter what you do and when you came looks pretty much unnatural. Like dolls or mannequins. Existing amount of animation is not enough (hands rubbing move was fine for Tali with her palms, on Hackett it looks odd, Udina style "I touch my chin" also abused). That's why it looks like fake - remember Home Alone silhouettes on curtains? Or Witcher 1 before enhanced edition patch was applied? Poles did that. For free. Without relying on artistic integrity.
Canadians Ukranians cannot?
No need to tell me about time or money constraints, I don't buy it.
Scale and timeline will require digging up old threads, up to one year old or translating my notes and I do not have time, nor wish (since search function here sucks) to do so. Not sure it is necessary, because If memory serves, you was present in old "Trial" thread and it was you who marked my suggestions as unnecessary, since you understood everything and had no need to know that.
Well, I didn't.
Let's take a closer look on very beginning of ME3.
Via "defense committee" and Anderson/Hacket conversation they try to tell us about something massive approaching. Why not show that on radar screen? Why not show "pre-invasion" condition: well-lit map, with well-lit spheres indicating occupied planets, with dotted lines, indicating established relay routes, tiny threads of comm-buoys connection lines, small triangles, rectangulars and boxes, indicating traveling ships. Sunshine and bunnies. And show us the timestamp somewhere, just for reference.
And then, during Anderson/Hackett conversation, show us that "oh, crap!" moment, when out of
blue black, natural big ****ing wall of something massive appears, begins to advance slowly, but relentlessly, extinguishing every glowing object on the map. And don't forget to adjust timestamps as well.
Defense committee told us about lost connection (or whatever) with colonies. How fast that happened? 5 minutes, 5 hours, 5 days, 5 weeks? Where all those 330 millions of alliance servicemen are stationed and by what means they are transpored and supplied (yeah, I remember Marie Durand and related quests with drone ships), if quarian fleet, capable to carry only 17 mlns appears to be very helpful?
Why build that microphone/umbrella hybrid and not build more
Liberty Athabaska or whatever freighters if you need them? How long it will take to build a ship (and how many shipyards are still functioning and how come Reapers are so nice so they managed to miss Crucible construction site)? If Dreadnought is built for a year and, say, WWII battleships took 3 years, then, supposedly, "space Liberty" can be built within 24/3=8 days. How long will it take to reach quarians and help them?
And where the hell Cerberus got their ships (apparently there are more than two), lend lease from Alliance (two PMCs fighting between each other?)? Even if I'm to believe "chipping" untrained civilians somehow turns them to best fighting force in the galaxy (Shepard VS Cerberus ~600:0, yeah, sure, best fighting force, what this says about everyone else?)...
Those are just few examples of "suspense of disbelief" where it fails for me. Too much BS to ignore.
AlanC9 wrote...
Were you maybe playing a badly dubbed version? I don't hear any such similarities in mine.
Dubs? Dubs sucks here, because we have about 2.5 good actors and they are usually used in each and every game and movie, so if you going to play localized, you'll have mind melt, because same voices are everywhere. So if there is only localized version, I do not buy it.
I played English DD, "only in Origin". Of course I could be wrong, I'm merely a human after all, without any artistic integrity to hide behind, but doesn't that "clerk" who "unlocks" Shepard's VI sounds like Kasumi or that wounded quarian technician on Rannoch sounds like Kaidan? I do not mention spirit of Corporal Jenkings, present on Academy grounds.
No? Really? My concussion plays jokes on me, then.
Dragoonlordz wrote...
The way I see it is even taking into account the few games that spring to mind that have a darker or less than happy ending of late, it is still vastly outnumbered by those with happy endings and heros striding off into sunset happy every after. It is not a bad thing to have the hills not alive with sound of music from time to time at the end of a game, in fact I prefer more did such because the ratio between those that do and those that do not is still far too much in the side of those with happy endings.
Friend, it's not about ending
. Protagonist's death doesn't make ending or game itself worse or better, or good, or bad. Storytelling does. For me, at least.
So ME3 ending is not "dark" from my point of view (just because Shepard is dead, nor for any other reason), it's just on par with major part of the remaning game - so-so (at best). As I said before, there are too much elements making game completely unbelievable for me. And if I cannot believe what's going on on screen... Well, let's say it's hard to find three wise thoughts, hidden within million words length book of nonsense. Same here.
As you know, I don't mind "dark" endings, or "sacrifice" (if presented properly), or general lack of happy ending, or attempt to raise some issues we discussed earlier. That is good and I'm fully up for it, if it accompanied by proper narrative. But present it normally, not like "leviathan, catalyst, sinthesys, obey!"
When all "darkness" limited to "those are bad guys, we gave them distinct look so you should have less problems aiming" and "protagonist dies" (I also didn't bought EC, since it's same chewing gum, only longer
) and such trends became massive, all I can see is helluva inertiality, herd behavior and lack of imagination.
Dragoonlordz wrote...
The difference I am referring to is not just story and characters alone, but narrative approach (for example if you recall from my review of DA2 the difference between first person and third person role playing section), game mechanics and gameplay systems more so including genre types.
I remember that, but still can't force myself to deal with DA2 combat anims, they just off, so I cannot use DA2 referrals, because I haven't experienced them myself yet. Generally I have no problems with that approach (and I think it will be interesting to look at same events but from two different points of view with different approaches you mentioned). But if limit myself to ME-only, I think narrative was decaying progressively.
Dragoonlordz wrote...
This aspect goes back to my definitions of what an RPG could mean, either A) Playing a role. 
RPG Elements.
I have mentioned in past these are the only two I consider valid ways to judge what is an is not an RPG, I consider A) to have such a broad scope that it invalidates it as a method because almost every game you play the role of someone or something. is the one I consider to be my personal benchmark and that no game is an RPG per se merely a game with RPG elements. The quality of those elements make no difference to my classification, their pressence is all that is required. It could have good RPG elements or bad ones but if it has them then it has RPG elements still regardless of good or bad. Such elements as skill, equipment or character customisation, dialogue choices, branching plot lines based on choices or actions etc etc. BF3 is a FPS with some RPG elements as is Blops2, ME is a third person shooter with RPG elements and so on. Now it is possible I guess that when a title has enough of those elements you can then refer to it as RPG but to me will also just be a game with RPG elements.
There are so many games with so called "RPG elements" so it makes you wonder, how much from RPG those games acrually have and what the hell RPG itself is?
I'd say games are either skill-based or progress-based. In progress-based game you basically nothing at very beginning, unless you get decent level-up and either skills allowing to pwn everything, or equipment, or both. Player's skills here are basically irrelevant, unless we compare two identical builds. In skill-based game, everthing depends on player's skills, and, in some cases, his character's skills (limiting player's abilities to use metagaming).
For example, counter-strike mostly skill-based game, of course, having cash advantage may shift balance toward less-skilled player, but not that much. Trine series (to some extent - Lost Vikings) is example of skill-based game where character's skills limits player's performance (in co-op, in single you can just swap characters instantly). Should you play as thief, you'll never be able to use shield to block incoming projectiles or blows. From "RPG" perspective, language skills (or, I don't know, Jagged Alliance 0-skill) comes to mind - if your character has no knowledge on subject, like "foreign" language, or, JA-based has skill at 0, he'll fail. And even if you know what to do, your character does not.
Majority of other games are progress-based. Be that latest CoD or BF3, where "growing up" gives you more perks, or my favorite Fallout series, practically anything, where without certain skills at certain levels, certain equipment - you practically cannon fodder. In some games progress is limited, in some - it is nearly eternal (yeah, yeah, I remember Diablo 2 race to lvl 99
). Of course, sooner or later majority of progress-based games (when everything is unlocked) turn closer to skill-based, but at this point skill already means little, unless that's MP game (world of tanks anyone?).
But what really saddens me, is copious amount of player-centered games, where nothing happens without player. I'd prefer to see more games where player is just drop in the ocean. Like Space Rangers, where, on easier difficulties, other rangers (NPCs) could win the war all by themselves. Imagine that in ME - "while Shepard was busy, cuddling his put_LI_name_here, forces of galaxy...."
Dragoonlordz wrote...
Asian games tend to have more happy ever after type endings than western games I feel but all depends on how many and which ones play I guess as with most things, experience with them makes one biased to a different perspective dependant on which have played and how many. The themes are different but only by way of how visceral I guess, sort of hard to put into words but bit like the level of expression and presentation is more blatent, sometimes quite over the top so. But thats mostly down to culture and historic differences. The real problem is that there are millions of stories already in existance whether thats in book format, games or movies so in order to not use same themes would be pretty much an impossiblity at this stage. Every story will have some form of reference or possible comparrison to some others that came before now in this day and age because the sheer quantity of stories out there and themes is so vast pre-existing that coming up with something 100% original is next to impossible.
I don't mean happy ending, I mean narrating through game itself. From what I've heard, asian games usually pay more attention to story (and the way they narrate it, even in games where we, PC folk, generally are not accustomed to see any story at all). And from what I've seen - to animation. As much as bad was Resident Evil 4 PC port, animations were wonderful. Especially for game dated back that old. And how Leon loaded Mauser C-96...
As for reference part, despite "infusion" between folklores, interpenetration of cultures, creating sort of "novelty effect" in perceiving storyline, good narrative is still mandatory.
Because from my point of view, even if story already being told, even if you know it well, but experiencing "new" version of it (or "based upon" (not just stupid remake, puhleeze, stahp!)), good narrative will greatly improve impression you'll have from game. Simply put, copying should be done wisely. If you got only hints on where you seen that before, that's, probably, wise copy. If you burst out laughing seeing something presented as "breakthrough", which you've seen that very thing several years earlier and can easily identify it, well, probably copypasting was done bad.
I
Dragoonlordz wrote...
t was not just perception I gained from an individual title but in combination across all three, peice by peice, event by event and from one conversation to the next they all led in combination to my percieved themes. Now like i said, to me the only themes that actually matter as far as telling the story go is the intended ones, it is good when I have the ability to percieve it a different way but I do not think it is right to hold the developer to ransom over my perception of a theme when that theme was never (or might not have been) intended.
To be honest, "trilogy" impressed me more like "coleslaw", or mishmash. Yes, there is a
greater good "great menace leitmotif" going through series, also there are attempts to raise some issues, but again, as sad as it sounds, from my perspective ME narrative just mark time.
Such style could work for KotoR back in 2003, but not half decade later (and in completely different universe). That what I meant, generally, when I criticized narrative and storytelling. No need to tell me I can't see forest for the trees, that's not forest, that's windbreak.
Technologies changed, now they allow you to create realisticly looking, feeling and believable world (well, Piranha bytes made that back in 2001 in Gothic (yeah, where's your Morrowind now, Bethesda?)), world you want to live in (or, actually, not, since we talk about "dark" games
). But what we have? GDC conferense - realistic sex in games. *sniff* Very grown up, very adult. Oh, well, maybe game industry is just full of hypocrites, who create games marked M/18+, but created for 14+, who knows. *shrugs*
Dragoonlordz wrote...
For example if I perceived Harry Potter to be a story about a kid with schizophrenia and that it's all in his mind due to dropped on his head as a baby which left a scar, making up this fictional magical world and fictional people in his head due to his illness...I wouldn't then demand that theme be applied to the final film where he should going by my perception of it -him waking up in a mental institute strapped to bed yelling and screaming about flying broomsticks. My perception of what the theme was while might be entertaining, doesn't mean they should change their intended theme to become same as mine.
You know, you first person who made me want to read HP books.
Probably I'll even give it a try.
Under this light, ME is a hallucination some drug dealer had, after he got LSD leakage and he went outside to smoke out a
fa cigarette.
Dragoonlordz wrote...
On a seporate note, I always thought I wrote a lot about things, but you continue to surprise me making mine microscopic in comparrison.
You inspire me to improve.
Retour en haut
